Las Vegas Raiders: Studs and Duds from Week 1 vs. Ravens

Las Vegas Raiders: Studs and Duds from Week 1 vs. Ravens

Duds

2. Andre James

This may be a bit harsh and we hope this is just some first real game jitters for Andre James but he had a rough game against this Baltimore defense. In the first series, he was called for a holding penalty and followed it up with a botched snap after mishearing Derek Carr’s cadence that luckily was recovered by the QB.

Carr will definitely take some of the blame as he gets his young center up to speed but this is not the sort of thing you want to see in front of your home crowd.

James had two other holding penalties over the course of the night that hurt the Raiders’ offense and struggled mightily in the run game. This was very evident in the 4th and 1 play that got blown up behind the line of scrimmage but Gruden didn’t do him any favors by asking him to block Campbell one on one rather than bringing a fullback to help lead the way.

He also had to deal with two injuries to the starting guards on either side of him which didn’t make things any easier.

James did do well in pass protection and the Ravens were only able to generate pressure off the edge either from a defensive end or a blitzing linebacker. Hopefully, we can look back at this game as a learning experience for James and the rest of the offensive line but things certainly don’t get any easier next week against the Pittsburgh Steelers.